Tom Pidcock has branded the Paris 2024 Olympic mountain biking course “bland” and said that the organisers “could have done a better job of making a more ‘mountain bike’ course”.
Pidcock, a Team GB gold medallist three years ago in Tokyo and winner of the UCI world cross-country title in Glasgow last year, described the cross-country course in suburban Élancourt, west of Paris, as “not the best course in the world, but it’s the same for everyone”.
Speaking to the media on Friday morning, the 24-year-old added: “We love mountain biking for the reasons that drive us to enjoy it for what it is. That’s the courses you get to ride, the places you get to go to. When you just gravel over a nice hillside, it’s not really mountain bike.”
Pidcock’s views were echoed by his teammate Evie Richards, who will compete in the women’s race on Sunday, 24 hours ahead of Pidcock.
“I’d have it more natural, with a lot more natural features, rather than man-made,” the former world champion said. “But I think we normally see that at Olympic Games. When we race World Cups, we’re normally in the Alps somewhere, somewhere in a nice ski resort. This is super close to the city centre.”
As the cycling disciplines get under way at the Games on Saturday afternoon, Josh Tarling will roll down the start ramp at Les Invalides as the hot favourite for the gold medal in the men’s time trial. The 20-year-old from Aberaeron is hotly tipped to be the quickest rider over the 32.4km course, which includes a stretch of Parisian cobblestones.
The British national time trial title holder, who was also bronze medallist in the world championships last year, has, unsurprisingly, been picked by Pidcock as the favourite. But the French sports newspaper L’Équipe also placed him ahead of Italy’s Filippo Ganna and Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel, the current world time trial champion.
Tarling said this week that his name “flies under the radar” but that will not be the case in Paris. “I know I have done everything I can,” he said. “As long as I am happy with my ride, I will be happy. I am a favourite for this but in terms of names, Remco was flying on the Tour [de France] and won the first time trial.”
Evenepoel, third overall to Tadej Pogacar in the Tour, has been one of those to criticise the condition of the Paris road surfaces. “There are a lot of holes in the Tarmac,” the Belgian said, “so it’s not great for a time trial bike.”
Tarling too said that he did not “love” the city centre course, describing both the opening and closing kilometres as “bumpy”. “For it to be really perfect for me it would be good to be twistier,” he said. “The road is quite bumpy at the start and finish because of resurfacing and potholes, but it is going to be fun.”
Whether Evenepoel, who admitted that he struggled to get out of bed last Monday after finishing the Tour on Sunday evening, will be in contention for the gold medal may depend on how well he recovers from three weeks of racing through the Pyrenees and Alps.
But Team GB’s first medal may come earlier in the afternoon, when Anna Henderson competes on what is, for the first time in the Olympic Games, the same course in the women’s race against the clock as the men’s. Henderson, a double national time trial champion, has a strong pedigree in time trialling and was silver medallist in last year’s European championships. The 25-year-old was also second in this year’s Tour of Britain and fourth, by a mere two seconds, in the time trial in last year’s world championships.
Henderson has long had Olympic dreams, but initially those were as a British junior slalom champion at the Winter Games. Her main rivals for a medal will be Chloé Dygert, the highly decorated American and multiple world champion; Tour de France Femmes champion Demi Vollering; and recent Tour of Britain winner Lotte Kopecky of Belgium.
Meanwhile, Vollering’s compatriot, 37-year-old Ellen van Dijk of the Netherlands, may have to be helped on and off her bike, after saying she can’t “unclip” her racing shoes from her pedals after fracturing her ankle six weeks ago. “The ankle doesn’t have much mobility yet,” she said, “But that’s no problem on the bike.”